At this moment, Madara's eyes had turned into black holes, looking extremely terrifying.
Yet, faced with this situation, the corners of his mouth curled into a mocking arc instead.
"Such a counterfeit..." Madara's low laughter reverberated through the sandstorm, "It hasn't even released one ten-thousandth of the Rinnegan's power."
The vortex of light and dust suddenly constricted!
A blinding white light, like the sun, erupted in the center of the battlefield, and the roar of all colliding Ninjutsu fell silent at this moment.
When the intense light faded, the shirtless black-haired man crushed the sandstone beneath his feet.
Armor automatically covered his body along with the flow of chakra; beneath his skin, magma-like power surged, and every inch of his muscles contained explosive force capable of tearing the earth apart.
This was the perfect body from his prime!
"Heh..." Madara slowly clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking like thunder.
A vibrant life force he had never experienced before surged through his veins, and he could even hear the surging sound of blood being squeezed as his heart beat.
He suddenly threw his head back and laughed wildly, the sound waves scattering the clouds in the high sky.
"Hashirama! Do you see this? This is what deserves to be called a vessel of 'power'!"
In the desert, the aftershocks of the immense life energy were still trembling in the air.
Nagato's withered body knelt on the ground, his white hair sticking to his sunken cheeks like withered grass.
The price of Rinne Rebirth had almost drained his last bit of vitality, but the remaining Six Paths Power still maintained his consciousness like a candle in the wind.
He struggled to lift his eyelids, his Rinnegan locked tightly onto Madara, who was floating under the blood-red sunset.
The man who had paved his road to resurrection with the flesh and blood of his parents and best friends was currently stretching his young, powerful body, intoxicated by the ecstasy of his rebirth.
"Madara..." Nagato's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing together, yet it carried an unquestionable determination.
"Release Konan... immediately!"
His withered fingers suddenly lifted, the tips gathering the last bit of weak Six Paths chakra, precisely pressing against his temples on both sides.
Although that power was dim, it clearly coiled around the Rinnegan that had once shocked the world, emitting a destructive fluctuation of mutual destruction.
"Otherwise... these eyes... will disappear from this desert forever!"
The battlefield fell into an instant of suffocation.
Madara's cheerful laughter stopped abruptly, his ecstasy replaced by cold killing intent.
He instantly perceived the Six Paths chakra at Nagato's fingertips, which was definitely not a bluff; it was indeed enough to detonate the Rinnegan.
Without these eyes, his subsequent plans would completely miscarry.
Black Zetsu let out an urgent hiss: "Lord Madara! The Rinnegan is the core of the plan! You can't..."
It knew well that Nagato's weakness at this moment was real, but his determined will to detonate the Rinnegan was even more real.
Konan's left eye could not close due to Black Zetsu's control, tears mixed with blood stains streaming down; her remaining consciousness made her body tremble violently, her lips moving silently.
Madara slowly turned around, a deathly oppression enveloping Nagato.
The corners of his mouth curled into a cruel arc: "A piece of trash gasping for breath, how dare you threaten me?"
But he did not act immediately; the value of that pair of Rinnegan far exceeded this dying person before him.
"Black Zetsu." Madara's voice was as cold as iron, "Let that woman go."
"But Lord Madara! He is at the end of his rope, as long as..." Black Zetsu still wanted to struggle.
"I said, let her go!"
Madara's chakra erupted with a roar, and the air solidified.
After weighing the options, Black Zetsu squirmed reluctantly.
Like ink receding with the tide, the pitch-black substance covering the right side of Konan's face quickly peeled off, eventually turning into a black shadow that retreated into the shadows beside Madara.
Konan lost her support, her body went limp, and she collapsed to the ground, coughing and gasping violently.
But those bright eyes finally broke free from control, and she looked anxiously toward Nagato for the first time.
Seeing Konan break free from control, Nagato's tense spirit relaxed, and the purple chakra light at his fingertips suddenly dimmed by more than half.
Violent coughing made his hunched body almost curl into a ball, and blood seeped from the corners of his mouth.
The light of the Rinnegan was also weak to the extreme, but he still stared fixedly at Madara, gasping and confirming.
"Let her... leave... the battlefield..."
Madara closed his empty eye sockets.
A Konan who had temporarily lost her power posed no threat to him, and Nagato's current state was that of a spent force.
The Rinnegan would eventually be his for the taking.
It just required a little time to wait for it to naturally extinguish.
"Get lost, insect."
Madara waved his hand disdainfully; for him, the greatest danger had been temporarily removed.
Konan struggled to crawl up and threw herself desperately toward Nagato.
Konan tightly supported the faint-breathing Nagato, and she could clearly feel his life slipping away.
Nagato leaned in his best friend's arms, taking a deep breath, as if he wanted to inhale the last trace of air from this battlefield filled with blood and smoke into his lungs.
In his Rinnegan, what flickered was no longer the arrogance of being a "God", nor was it the fear of dying.
His peripheral vision swept over Madara, who was floating in the air not far away, and the shadow of Black Zetsu, which followed Madara like a shadow, exuding a cold aura.
Nagato understood that Madara's goal had never changed.
The Rinnegan, and the power that ultimately led to the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Even if they obtained the Rinnegan, Madara and Black Zetsu would not necessarily allow Konan to live.
"Konan..." Nagato's voice was hoarse and weak, almost drowned out by the wind, "You must run..."
Konan subconsciously tightened her arms as she supported him, her voice trembling but incomparably firm.
"Don't say silly things... we will go together..."
"No..." Nagato shook his head gently, interrupting her.
"The only bargaining chip... is left with this..." He struggled to raise his hand, pointing at his own Rinnegan.
This was almost a doomed, futile attempt.
However, when Nagato's gaze fell on Konan's face again, seeing that she was willing to fight Obito, fight Black Zetsu, and even fight the whole world for his sake...
He knew that even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand chance, he had to gamble.
This was not just for Konan's survival, but also to make up for the mistakes he had committed against Yahiko and Konan during his life of being manipulated as a "pawn".
Nagato's broken body floated in mid-air, the excruciating pain brought by the extraction of the Ten-Tails almost causing him to faint, but a light of unprecedented determination flickered in his eyes.
Accompanied by a deafening roar, that terrifying beast, a hundred meters high, appeared.
The Ten-Tails, carrying a destructive torrent of chakra, descended upon the desert battlefield once again!
The huge shadow instantly shrouded the area below; whether it was the newly resurrected Madara, the shaken Konan, or the Allied Forces standing in battle formation, everyone was shocked by this sudden turn of events.
Madara also didn't expect Nagato to be so resolute, without any hesitation at all.
"The Ten-Tails has returned?! Good! That saves me some trouble!"
However, Nagato's actions did not stop.
Just at the moment everyone's attention was attracted by the reappearance of the Ten-Tails, his withered fingers plunged into his own eye sockets without hesitation!
"Squish..."
Two heart-wrenching, muffled sounds.
Two eyes, containing the mysteries of the Rinnegan realm and surrounded by purple ripples.
The Rinnegan, which had once been coveted by countless people, were forcibly gouged out by his own hands!
Blood instantly stained his pale cheeks red, flowing down his sunken eye sockets like two streams of desperate red tears.
"Nagato!!!" Konan cried out heart-rendingly, desperate to rush over.
But Nagato used his last strength to violently throw the two warm eyeballs, which seemed to still carry the lingering warmth of his life.
Toward the direction away from the center of the battlefield, throwing them with all the remaining embers of his life!
Those eyeballs, flickering with an eerie purple light, cut through the air filled with smoke and blood, like two tiny meteors, flying away in different directions.
"Take them! Everything worth coveting... take it all!"
He roared in a voice so hoarse it was almost indistinguishable, his body trembling violently from the intense pain and blood loss as he fell from the sky.
He was willing to gamble everything he had for that sliver of possibility for Konan to survive.
He was gambling on the chaos caused by him discarding the "bargaining chip" that was the Rinnegan itself!
Gambling on whether that The Collector Takuno, who hung high in the sky and viewed everything as a drama, would break his desperate detachment because of this pair of discarded "precious collectibles"!
Gambling on the Ten-Tails, which had broken free from the Rinnegan's control, going completely berserk and dragging Madara's plan into the abyss of destruction!
His sunken eye sockets stared hollowly at the sky, as if waiting for the final judgment of fate.
"Hmph, a weakling's trick."
Although Madara had no eyes at this moment, he could still feel Nagato's movements.
After noticing that Nagato had thrown the pair of Rinnegan away, he snorted coldly and instantly created a Shadow Clone, and both of them rushed toward the two Rinnegan simultaneously.
With his explosive speed, as long as that guy named The Collector didn't make a move, he believed few people could be faster than him!
As Madara and his Shadow Clone lunged toward the spinning, falling Rinnegan like arrows off a bowstring.
The dying Nagato used his last bit of strength to tug at the corner of Konan's clothes.
His chest heaved like a broken bellows, his voice weak.
"Go... take me away..."
The tear stains on Konan's face had long since dried, those light orange eyes as hollow as shattered glass, reflecting not a glimmer of life.
The heart-piercing pain of Yahiko's passing had not yet subsided, and now Nagato was also about to extinguish the last fire of his life in her arms.
Self-reproach? Regret? Everything had lost its meaning.
She nodded gently, her movements mechanical yet exceptionally firm: "Okay... let's go to a place with flowers."
She knew that would be their common final resting place.
Paper sheets gathered silently, forming a pair of huge, pale wings behind her back.
She carefully picked up Nagato's body, which was as light as a withered leaf, flapped her wings, and flew toward the desolate horizon, away from the bloody battlefield.
Below, the Edo Tensei army and the tide of White Zetsu were fiercely locked in combat with the Allied Forces.
Everyone was fighting for their own obsessions; no one looked up, and no one had the time to care about this pair of drifting, fading candles.
Black Zetsu, hidden in the folds of the shadows, watched the paper wings fly away with its dark eyes coldly.
It calculated rapidly in its heart: Nagato was no longer a Jinchuriki, the Rinnegan had been discarded, and he was nothing more than a decaying, dying body with exhausted chakra.
Konan was even more heart-dead and posed no further threat.
Attacking and intercepting this dying pair at this moment was not only worthless, but could also anger Madara, who was currently fighting with high morale to seize the Rinnegan.
After all, given Madara's arrogance, since he had already agreed, he would definitely do it.
And it, Black Zetsu, as a product of Madara's spirit, naturally needed to follow Madara's thoughts.
Of course, most importantly, in its grand plan to resurrect its mother.
This pair of orphans from Amegakure had completely become insignificant dust.
It chose silence, redirecting all its attention back to the chaotic center of the battlefield, after which Madara would obtain the Rinnegan, and then...
Become the new Ten-Tails Jinchuriki.
And this scene meant that it was just one last step away from resurrecting its mother!
Even Black Zetsu couldn't help but get excited at this moment.
Just as Madara was about to touch the falling Rinnegan in the air, a Kamui vortex suddenly twisted the space.
Obito's figure flashed in first, precisely grabbing the Rinnegan flowing with purple ripples!
"Obito!"
Madara's furious roar shook the desert, his body, restored by Edo Tensei, erupting with monstrous killing intent.
"You bastard... how dare you covet the power of God?!"
Obito did not reply, his figure disappearing in front of Madara once again under Kamui.
When he appeared again, he was already on the body of the Ten-Tails, and his left eye had already turned into a Rinnegan.
Noticing this scene, Madara's body erupted with monstrous rage.
At this moment, Madara saw everything clearly.
Obito's long-standing cooperation and "loyalty" were nothing but a meticulously planned deception!
This pawn he had personally selected had long been weaving its own web of ambition in the dark, hypocritically executing the Eye of the Moon Plan, just waiting for this moment of betrayal and power seizure.
Madara took a deep breath; anger did not consume his reason, and the corners of his mouth curled into a cold sneer.
"Hmph... do you think that by relying on the convenience of Kamui, you can play such low-level tricks in front of me?
Do you think I, Madara, would gamble everything on your 'loyalty' without any precautions?"
Before the words faded, Madara formed a strange hand seal with one hand.
"Urgh!"
Obito's body stiffened suddenly, as if pinned to the spot by invisible shackles.
Intense, writhing pain from the depths of his heart swept through his entire body instantly, making him almost suffocate.
He tried to activate Kamui to enter intangibility, but found it was useless; intangibility only stored his body in the Kamui Dimension.
But in essence, it would not change the state his body was in, nor would it have any purification effect.
Those arms that wanted to form hand seals were trembling violently and uncontrollably, his movements completely stalled.
Madara stepped forward slowly, every step treading on Obito's nerves, which were on the verge of collapse; his cold mockery was like a sharp blade:
"Stupid thing. From the moment you accepted the First Hokage's cells I bestowed upon you, from the moment the curse seal was carved into your heart, your fate has never escaped the palm of my hand. Betrayal? I had long since anticipated this despicable act of yours!"
On the other side, Madara's Shadow Clone also approached that other Rinnegan.
This time, Obito could not act over there, so this Rinnegan would naturally fall into his hands.
Then, a sound of something breaking through the air came from his ear.